Quintus Vosman

JOURNEY times for the hourly inter-city service between Amsterdam and Brussels were cut by half an hour on April 9, when trains were re-routed to run via the entire length of HSL South in the Netherlands and Belgium’s high-speed Line 4.

THE 11km North-South metro line in Amsterdam will finally open on July 22, 15 years after work began on the €3.2bn project and more than a decade after it was due to open, although the project still requires the authorisation to place in service by Amsterdam municipality.

THE European Commission (EC) has approved the takeover of Škoda Transportation by investment company PPF Group, officially based in the Netherlands but owned by Czech entrepreneur Mr Petr Kellner, one of the richest persons in the Czech Republic.

THALYS has announced it is planning to launch new services from Amsterdam to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport and Marne-la-Vallée, the station serving Disneyland Paris, in April 2019.

THE Dutch secretary of state for infrastructure, Mrs Stientje van Veldhoven, has imposed a €1.27m fine on infrastructure manager Prorail for failing to meet performance benchmarks last year.

GERMANY’s Federal minister for transport and digital infrastructure, Mr Andreas Scheuer, attended a groundbreaking ceremony at Memmingen on March 23 to mark the official launch of electrification works on the Munich - Lindau line.

THE Port of Rotterdam Authority has awarded a contract for the construction of a new freight line which will divert traffic away from the life-expired Caland vertical lift bridge.

CAF started testing the first of 13 sets of Mk5A coaches for British operator TransPennine Express at the VUZ Velim test circuit in the Czech Republic on March 21.

GERMAN regional operator Hessen State Railways has published an announcement in the Official Journal of the European Union confirming that it has exercised an option with Alstom Germany for five additional four-car class 1440 Coradia Continental EMUs.

THE 28km freight-only line linking Bad Bentheim and Neuenhaus will have its passenger service reintroduced in December, 44 years after they were withdrawn by German Federal Railways, following an agreement signed in Verden on March 13.